Business owners and startup entrepreneurs are always searching for low-cost and no-cost ways to promote their businesses and get their name in front of potential customers. PR is a perfect way for most businesses to get attention and attract new customers. Nothing brings people to your door (website, Facebook page, etc.) like PR. Most businesses know this, but few have the budget to hire a PR firm. The good news is you don’t have to.

That’s because there are many free or low-cost ways to get PR via the Internet. It’s never been easier to practice your own public relations. But it takes time and effort on your part. Here are five free or frugal PR tools you can use to launch your own internal public relations effort.

1. HARO (Help A Reporter Out) is a free service from Vocus that lets you sign up to become a resource for reporters writing stories on topics in your field of expertise. From The New York Times, to ABC News, to HuffingtonPost.com and everything in between, nearly 30,000 members of the media have quoted HARO sources in their stories. Everyone’s an expert at something. Sharing your expertise may land you that big media opportunity you’ve been looking for. For a monthly fee you get more bells and whistles.

2. PRWeb is a low-cost news release creation, submission and distribution service used by many small firms. News and press releases distributed via PRWeb raise your online visibility where millions of people are searching for information. When you submit your news releases to PRWeb, they will be indexed by search engines such as Google, sent to news sites such as Yahoo! News and placed into RSS feeds with more than 250,000 subscribers that include bloggers, journalists and consumers.

PRWeb also helps you build inbound links from other premium sites, one of the most important assets to build your website’s credibility in search engines. All of this helps drive traffic by helping people find you online and click through to your website. With “advanced features” your news goes to premier news outlets such as The New York Times, USA Today and others via the Associated Press. You can also include video, attachments, images and links to engage your customers and encourage people to share your story.

One of the best parts about PRWire is all of the free help available on the site. Look in the “Tools & Tips” section for advice on how to write a good press release, common press release mistakes, best practices for online news releases, how to format your news release and more.

3.Free Press Release lets you submit releases for nothing. The basic service provides free distribution to Google News and other popular search engines. If you register (still free) you have additional capabilities to log into your account, monitor your release, and delete it. A more expansive paid service is also available.

4. Another free press release distribution service called 1888PressRelease.com sends your releases to search engines, newswires and websites. For a modest fee, you can upgrade to wider distribution. You can also attach files, logos or images to your press release if you want.

5.PitchRate.com is a free service that connects journalists with topic experts – such as small business owners – for free media coverage. Basically, it’s a place where you can get free media leads. PitchRate also offers helpful (free) information on how to get free publicity, PR tips, personal branding ideas and more. It sponsors regular free “PR Happy Hour” conference calls that let you talk live with marketing and PR experts, ask questions and get free advice.

About the Author: Daniel Kehrer, Founder and Chief Content Officer of BizBest Media, is a senior-level leader in digital media, content development and online marketing with special expertise in startups, SMB, social media and generating traffic, engagement and leads. He holds an MBA from UCLA/Anderson and is a passionate entrepreneur (started 4 businesses), syndicated columnist, blogger, thought leader and author of 7 business and financial books.

Comments (2)

These tools are helpful to increase the business value in the market. Some of these techniques include SEO work (OFF page SEO). Keeping the business alive in media is the best thing to increase business PR.